Creating Bones (with Hart Hanson)
Subscribe to Lemonada Premium for Bonus Content
It’s a Hart Hanson special! This week on Boneheads, Emily and Carla are joined by none other than the creator of Bones himself, Hart Hanson. Get the ultimate insider scoop as Hart dives into everything that brought the iconic show to life – from his journey to joining the project, to casting Emily as Brennan, and unforgettable memories from filming the pilot (yes, including the “I can be a duck” scene). Hart talks about saying goodbye to beloved characters like Goodman and Zack, bringing in fan favorites like Cam and Sweets, and how they kept things fresh with a rotating cast of Squinterns. Plus, Hart tells the story of Emily’s Season 1 birthday surprise gone wrong.
To stay up to date with Boneheads and send us your fan questions, follow us on Instagram @boneheadspod.
Keep up with Hart Hanson on Instagram @hartdhanson, and check out his books on his website: harthanson.com/books.
Find out more about other shows on our network at @lemonadamedia on all social platforms.
Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors/.
For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com.
Transcript
SPEAKERS
Hart Hanson, Carla Gallo, Emily Deschanel
Carla Gallo 00:00
Do you want me to move closer? […] The first time I’m not loud enough, Hart. Everyone was telling me to be quiet. So this is shocking.
Hart Hanson 00:10
Your voice carries.
Emily Deschanel 00:12
Shocking. I know David Boreanaz, be like, “I couldn’t hear him” He’d be like, “Two feet from me. I could not hear what he said sometimes”. And they tell him to be louder, and they’d tell me, “Can you be quiet?” I was like, “Oh, okay, I’ve never heard another actor.
Carla Gallo 00:26
Your voice is deep.
Emily Deschanel 00:27
It’s deep.
Carla Gallo 00:28
It’s loud […] .
Emily Deschanel 00:35
But we don’t need that for doing TV. I could have mumbled.
Hart Hanson 00:38
It worked for us.
Emily Deschanel 00:40
Okay.
Hart Hanson 00:40
Brennan was clear and direct.
Emily Deschanel 00:42
Yeah […]. One time I read something, there was someone’s like, “I don’t like that Bones, lead actor, sounds like she’s yelling all the time”.
Carla Gallo 00:49
Really?
Hart Hanson 00:51
And of course, that’s what your number.
Emily Deschanel 00:53
Point taken […] .
Hart Hanson 00:57
Sometimes she was on the move, shouting across a rotting corpse.
Emily Deschanel 01:01
Yes, people needed to hear about the dead body and what happened.
Carla Gallo 01:16
Hi, I’m Carla Gallo.
Emily Deschanel 01:18
And I’m Emily Deschanel.
Carla Gallo 01:19
And this is Boneheads.
Carla Gallo 01:25
Good. I know you had an encounter.
Emily Deschanel 01:25
How’s it going?
Emily Deschanel 01:30
I’ve had so many encounters the last few weeks. I have seen on purpose and not on purpose or just by happenstance. I’ve seen so many bones people.
Carla Gallo 01:39
I know. I mean, I’ve heard you’ve dangled the carrot, but I actually haven’t heard the stories. And so I would like to hearthat.
Emily Deschanel 01:47
Sometimes it’s just like I went to lunch with people. I went to lunch with Eugene, Dierdre, Ignacio. I went to lunch with Michaela, of course, just like I’m luncheon.
Emily Deschanel 01:58
And a lady who lunches.
Carla Gallo 01:58
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 01:58
You’re luncheon?
Emily Deschanel 02:00
And then I ran into Steve and Nathan.
Carla Gallo 02:03
You did?
Emily Deschanel 02:04
At the doctor’s office.
Carla Gallo 02:06
Oh, that’s kind of cute.
Emily Deschanel 02:09
We have the same doctor.
Carla Gallo 02:10
Is that coincidence? Did you know it was a coincidence?
Emily Deschanel 02:12
No, I didn’t know that he went to my same doctor.
Carla Gallo 02:15
Really?
Emily Deschanel 02:16
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 02:16
How is he?
Emily Deschanel 02:18
He seems great and we were planning to get together, then he could, but he was going to be out of town, and so we haveto plan another time. But Stephen Nathan, for people who are listening, it’s not just a conversation between this which I forget sometimes. Stephen Nathan was a longtime bones producer and then became the showrunner when Hart went off to do other things. So he’s a writer, producer, and just lots of fun.
Carla Gallo 02:44
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 02:44
Then, I went to Indianapolis for a film festival. As I was driving from the airport, (I literally said out loud to the Uber driver) like, “I don’t know anybody lives in Indianapolis”. But then after it came out of my mouth, I was like, “Wait, I think Mike Rossell is Indiana”.
Carla Gallo 03:04
Okay.
Emily Deschanel 03:04
Mike Rossell was our law enforcement consultant on the show.
Carla Gallo 03:08
Oh, that’s great.
Carla Gallo 03:08
Amazing.
Emily Deschanel 03:08
And taught us how to be safe with firearms, what protocol would be with and he work more with David, obviously, than with me. But, he was great. We got to have dinner, reminisce,chat, and he would love to come on the podcast.
Emily Deschanel 03:22
And I talked to TJ on the phone two days ago.
Carla Gallo 03:29
You did?
Emily Deschanel 03:30
Yeah, I have to talk to you about that. […] I’m texting with tomorrow. I mean, I’m always in contact with people.
Carla Gallo 03:38
And did you tell every single one of them that they have to come on?
Emily Deschanel 03:41
Podcast?
Carla Gallo 03:42
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 03:42
I did. But, you know, people like Eugene and Ignacio, they don’t come in until later.
Carla Gallo 03:47
Yeah, that’s true. I know.
Emily Deschanel 03:49
I mean, we can figure out ways of having them on because that’d be fun.
Carla Gallo 03:55
I don’t want to wait like a full of the season.
Emily Deschanel 03:58
But Michaela, coming on as soon as possible.
Carla Gallo 04:01
A.S.A.P.
Emily Deschanel 04:03
So this episode, we have Hart Hanson, who is the creator of Bones and the showrunner for many years before Bones. He worked on several shows, both in Canada and Hollywood. We’ll talk about this, including Traders, Cupid, Judging Amy and Joan of Arcadia. He went on to create the bone spin off series; The Finder and the crime comedy drama; Backstrom, starring Wayne Wilson. Hart also has written two novels. The first one is called “The Driver”, and the newest one that came out this year is called “The Seminarian”. I enjoyed both ofthem very much. They’re fun, quirky, interesting characters solving mystery, and Los Angeles is the backdrop to both of them. They’re real love letters to L.A and you’ll kind of hear on this interview with Hart, how much a boy from Canada loved coming to Los Angeles, where the entertainment happen.
Carla Gallo 05:01
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 05:03
Without further ado.
Carla Gallo 05:05
Hart Hanson.
Emily Deschanel 05:06
Here he is.
Emily Deschanel 05:11
Will you tell us how you got involved in. But, you’d worked on Judging Amy. Was that the thing you worked on right before?
Hart Hanson 05:21
No, I worked in Canada on a whole bunch of TV shows, and then I created a show up in Canada called “Traders”, which was about the exciting world of high finance on Canada’s Wall Street, which is called Bay Street.
Carla Gallo 05:39
I didn’t know they had a Wall Street.
Emily Deschanel 05:40
I didn’t either.
Carla Gallo 05:42
We’re learning.
Hart Hanson 05:43
I was working on traders, and we’d won the Canadian Emmy the Gemini like four times in a row, and I was going up the fourth time to get it. There was not a bounce of joy in my step. I was going, “Really, are we the best TV show? We have1.8 million viewers, and we were up against ER” (if you remember that show), it had 8 million Canadian viewers.
Emily Deschanel 06:11
Oh! wow.
Hart Hanson 06:11
So, it was third of the population. I was gonna have to get it. And I had said that we don’t have studios up there. But we had a huge production company, and this guy I loved working with at Atlantis, I certainly wanted more people to watch our show. I was a little bummed, I guess, just four yearsand midlife, I don’t know. And he said, “Oh, in that case, you’re gonna have to go to the States, because we just can’t put 2 or $3 million into a show. Our budget was going to be $800,000 Canadian, which is was about $600,000 American for an hour long show”. And that is when an American agent came to me; Matt Solo at ICM, came and said, “Would you be interested in being Canadian?” This is not the way he put it, this is what I said. “A Canadian figurehead in an office collecting money, and just don’t bother anyone, and just sit there so the American companies can get some tax breaks, because one of the executive producers is Canadian”. It’s a very common thing.
Emily Deschanel 07:17
Okay.
Hart Hanson 07:18
But I had no interest.
Emily Deschanel 07:19
Wait, so he asked you to do that, and you said you don’t have any interest?
Hart Hanson 07:22
I wouldn’t mind seeing if I could come down to LA and maybe have the experience of being on an American TV show. And he said, No, you’re way too old.
Carla Gallo 07:23
May I ask how old are you?
Hart Hanson 07:26
Carla Gallo 07:27
Oh, no, are you serious?
Hart Hanson 07:28
Yeah
Carla Gallo 07:31
And he’s like, “You’re too old?”.
Hart Hanson 07:33
Calm down. I was a newbie, like, none of my credits would belike a 22 year old kid […] .
Emily Deschanel 07:50
Okay, so you met with people in L.A.
Hart Hanson 07:52
I had a whole bunch of general meetings, and I had some joboffers, low level. I didn’t think we would live here. I didn’t think we would thrive here, I just wanted the experience.
Emily Deschanel 08:09
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 08:10
To wander around and see what America like, because I learned everything from American media, like most people do, about what it’s like to be in show business in Hollywood. And I just wanted to be in it, to have some stories.
Emily Deschanel 08:24
Yeah and go back to Canada and be like, “You guys”.
Hart Hanson 08:26
Before we left, we had a dinner party with everyone who says, “You’ll be back in a year with your tail between your legs, because it’s scary and mean”. Someone said, very poetic. Great writer said to me, “The water is deep, the currents are swift, and there are monsters in the water”. And Ithought, “Wow”.
Carla Gallo 08:32
You know what? Not wrong.
Hart Hanson 08:49
Not wrong.
Carla Gallo 08:50
It’s just about whether you can stick it out.
Hart Hanson 08:52
Yeah […] .
Emily Deschanel 08:54
Like “Yeah, monsters aren’t”
Hart Hanson 08:56
Yeah. Then I was working on Judging Amy when part of my overall deal was to write a pilot. So here’s a real fast version of the Bones.
Carla Gallo 08:56
Yes.
Emily Deschanel 09:07
Doesn’t have to be fast?
Hart Hanson 09:08
Well, it should be.
Emily Deschanel 09:09
Okay.
Hart Hanson 09:09
Because I was hooked up with a big, famous lawyer and was going to do a law show based on this big, famous lawyer.
Emily Deschanel 09:20
Is this a show you bailed on?
Emily Deschanel 09:21
What?
Hart Hanson 09:21
And I just went, “I’m out”, because it’s just whatever their thing was.
Hart Hanson 09:21
I bailed on it. I was informed by the big, famous lawyer that I would be sharing credit for creating a show with a beautiful young associate at his law firm for no reason.
Emily Deschanel 09:24
That thing is a little bit, not just a little bit.
Hart Hanson 09:30
Yeah. So then, I owed them a project fast. I felt really bad, they paid me lots of money. I was raised up in the television world with the idea that you must pay back your investors forthe sake of other writers.
Emily Deschanel 09:52
Okay.
Hart Hanson 09:53
Never mind the investors, but they’re not going to invest. It’s just how I was, it’s in my DNA.
Emily Deschanel 09:59
Great. Because if you don’t do it, then they’re going to be less likely to do it for somebody else.
Hart Hanson 10:03
If you just lose money for people, they won’t invest in other people. So you’re hurting other people in your community, other creative people in your community. That might be a Canadian thing. Those production companies have operatedso leanly, it’s like “We got to make money on this, or we’re screwed”.
Emily Deschanel 10:21
Done.
Hart Hanson 10:22
Yeah, so they said we’ve got this project based on Kathy Reichs, a procedural. Barry Josephson had a pod there, and he had the rights with if did I want to meet with Barry Josephson. I did want to meet with Barry Josephson becauseI’d googled him, but I had no interest in doing a procedural. But, what Barry had the rights to, was a documentary about Kathy Reichs.
Carla Gallo 10:52
It is someting that exists?
Hart Hanson 10:54
Yes, it was an documentary.
Emily Deschanel 10:56
I’ve never seen it. And so, I’m so curious, Barry Josephson is a producer and mogul and all that. But, he got the rights to thedocument. It was just a short documentary, right? It’s like 45 minutes.
Carla Gallo 10:57
Oh, okay.
Hart Hanson 10:58
Yes, correct.
Emily Deschanel 11:08
And one book was that right?
Hart Hanson 11:18
Yes.
Emily Deschanel 11:18
Oh, okay […] .
Hart Hanson 11:20
I didn’t know we had the rights to the book. I only thought wehad a right.
Emily Deschanel 11:25
And that’s where all the confusion lay.
Hart Hanson 11:27
Yes.
Emily Deschanel 11:28
Because talking to Kathy and talking to you over years. You have conversations, but her understanding and your understanding. I remember, I think you told me, “Don’tread the books, because it’s not about the books”.
Hart Hanson 11:42
It’s not about the books. Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 11:43
And you don’t want that, the characters. So, the people who have not read the books, Temperance Brennan is the character in the books, but she’s different than in the show.
Hart Hanson 11:52
Yes, she’s substantially older.
Emily Deschanel 11:55
Yes.
Hart Hanson 11:55
Works in a different place.
Carla Gallo 11:57
Yes. So Brennan is more Kathy Reich’s then she is Temperance Brennan of the books.
Hart Hanson 12:02
Yes.
Carla Gallo 12:03
Okay.
Hart Hanson 12:03
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 12:04
It was more that. I went from just what was on the page. Andof course, I was so excited to meet Kathy, and we’ll talk to her too.
Hart Hanson 12:10
You have to.
Emily Deschanel 12:11
We are.
Hart Hanson 12:11
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 12:11
She’s in Africa right now.
Hart Hanson 12:13
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 12:14
We’ll talk to her later.
Carla Gallo 12:15
Fitting.
Emily Deschanel 12:16
Yes, of course.
Hart Hanson 12:18
Kathy started out to me as a slight irritation, and became one of my favorite people in the world.
Emily Deschanel 12:26
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 12:27
Over the course of things, totally due to her, by the way.
Emily Deschanel 12:30
You get to know her more. You know, when I first met her, I hugged her, and I’ll talk to her about this too, because I don’t think I’ve ever discussed it. But, I don’t think she like me hugging her. You know, I was fairly young. I was late 20s, andI grown up in an environment where you hug people.
Carla Gallo 12:51
You don’t need to apologize for your hug.
Hart Hanson 12:56
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 12:56
At same time. I also have several friends and know people who do not like me unless it’s by someone whom they are very close with. And so, I totally understand that that’s kind of a weird, jarring thing to hug someone when you meet them.
Emily Deschanel 12:57
And I recognize that now. And I think Kathy, she probably doesn’t even remember or maybe she does, I don’t know.
Hart Hanson 13:16
She probably remembers what you were wearing.
Emily Deschanel 13:21
Some real chunky necklaces, some very strong necklaces.
Hart Hanson 13:35
We called them the Flintstones necklace.
Emily Deschanel 13:46
More with Hart Hanson after this quick ad break.
Emily Deschanel 14:08
Well, we’ve re watched some of these.
Carla Gallo 14:13
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 14:13
And we got to see that there’s some belt buckles.
Carla Gallo 14:16
Yeah, there were.
Emily Deschanel 14:18
There’s an Angela belt buckle, and maybe the second or thirdepisode, that was very I think […] .
Carla Gallo 14:26
I did. I made some costume notes.
Carla Gallo 14:29
There are some costume. I always talk to Michaela about when I first, I think it might have been the episode where I started. She, at that time, had her lab coat […]. She’s like, mortified. She’s like, “I can’t believe that I wore that” […] .
Emily Deschanel 14:29
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 14:52
I mean, it was of the time. She certain things were kind of thetime, and certain things were supposed to. I mean, speaking of costume, we’re jumping all over the place and I think that’sfine. But I remember after the pilot, first of all, I was somebody who’s always cast as 35 since I was 23 when I started auditioning. And so, I always trying to look older, because I’d be testing for part that was 35 and you’re the youngest person testing for it. But I want this job, and I put my hair in a French twist or whatever, and go with a suit on. But I remember, they dressed me in some very kind of suits that were for older people. I would never wear the stuff likethat. I’m talking about, specifically the pilot.
Hart Hanson 15:39
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 15:40
Where I was, like, “Wearing these scarves was like, a 50 year old professor or something.
Hart Hanson 15:46
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 15:47
I remember my publicist and my manager, all had conversations behind my back.
Hart Hanson 15:54
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 15:55
Maybe with you guys or something, they told me about how the character should wear cooler clothes. And I was like, “Really? That’s so interesting”.
Carla Gallo 16:03
By episode two you’re in this nice, flowy skirt.
Emily Deschanel 16:06
That was after the conversation, I think.
Carla Gallo 16:08
Oh! Interesting. Because I really clocked that, because it’s very different from where you later.
Emily Deschanel 16:11
I think they were just trying to figure out what the hell I should and who she is and I remember, wearing these things and be like, “Oh yeah, I would never wear this, but I’m playingthis part that is an established person”.
Carla Gallo 16:26
But, that is hard in the beginning of a show. I think, shows arestill trying to figure out who. It must be so crazy as you’re writing it, you’re like, “We’re sort of figuring out who she is and who she makes it and who she becomes”.
Hart Hanson 16:38
And then there was the age of the actress that was, I didn’tgive a shit.
Carla Gallo 16:46
So what were you 2020? Something?
Hart Hanson 16:48
Yeah, she was supposed to have a double doctorate. I don’t care. But, she’s really a genius.
Carla Gallo 16:55
Yeah, she’s genius.
Hart Hanson 16:57
And there’s a bunch of reasons I didn’t care. And one was “Oh, thank god, she’s here to save us”. There’s no show without this woman.
Carla Gallo 17:06
As I watched the pilot, I was able to step back and we just talked about this and have this awareness of you have this script, and you have to find the actress for this role.
Hart Hanson 17:23
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 17:23
And what is required of that role, I was like, “This is not I wentin for a lot of”. Kevin James’s wife on the sick up there, and there were lines of us for this role that is the needle in the haystack to find the woman who can play.
Hart Hanson 17:23
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 17:23
I disagree.
Hart Hanson 17:24
I’ll tell you exactly why. You had to play a someone on the spectrum who was going to blurt, not blurt, but say the truth about the way she saw things and be a genius, and yet somehow be warm and vulnerable beneath that.
Emily Deschanel 17:59
Yeah, it seems contradictory. And I was just telling Carlo about how when I went in for went in for the audition. I know I want to talk about how you’re the pilot, but we can just talk about this right now. But when I went in for the audition slashmeeting, I remember being (this is in between a meeting and an audition). Why can I just audition? But anyway, I got there,and I remember I made some, (I don’t know how much you remember about that meeting, and that is weird).
Hart Hanson 18:23
The fact that I remember it at all is amazing.
Emily Deschanel 18:25
Yeah. Well, you probably met with so many people too during that time.
Hart Hanson 18:28
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 18:28
But I remember I made some comment, and I remember you laughing at it, and now I have about the contradiction of the character […] .
Carla Gallo 18:36
Yeah, I can’t relate to people, but it’s like, wants to be in arelationship. Something that is relatable […] .
Emily Deschanel 18:42
The contradictions I said.
Carla Gallo 18:43
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 18:45
Don’t they describe every character? But, it was more specific. I think I made a joke of how every character is described as strong but vulnerable.
Hart Hanson 18:54
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 18:55
I made some joke, but I realized you probably laughed because it was the character come in and say to a writer, “Well, don’t aren’t all characters described like that?”.
Carla Gallo 19:06
You’ve written this contradictory.
Hart Hanson 19:07
There’s a whole bunch of reasons, that’s a funny statement. One is, sometimes character descriptions have nothing to do with what you’re after; they are for actor.
Emily Deschanel 19:20
Studio or the network.
Hart Hanson 19:20
Vanity, they are for studio assurance.
Carla Gallo 19:24
This is like a nightmare for me to hear, by the way.Cause you didn’t explain what you just talking about.
Emily Deschanel 19:24
We will sorry about this.
Carla Gallo 19:26
We were just saying, sometimes you get the material and thedescription doesn’t match, and then you’re at this weird crossroads, like I’m trying to satisfy this description. I made a self tape this morning […]. And then I’m like, “I’m worried about you”. And I’m like, “Well, which one is? Is she detached?” She, I’m worried about you […] .
Emily Deschanel 19:31
They want all of it.
Hart Hanson 19:58
Or they don’t.
Carla Gallo 19:59
They don’t know what they want.
Hart Hanson 20:00
So when someone says about a character, it’s like, “Oh, good,let’s talk about this a little bit”.
Emily Deschanel 20:08
So when I came in and said, “Hey, every character’s described like this”, you didn’t laugh because I was similar to Brennan and I’m doubting out something else, most appropriate.
Hart Hanson 20:23
Because the answer is yes, but we are serious.
Carla Gallo 20:29
She really is all these things.
Emily Deschanel 20:30
Right […]. I think I was probably trying to ask, “What do you want?” Every character is kind of described in this way. So what do you want?
Hart Hanson 20:39
Later, not too long, you were upset in their true meaning of the word. You were agitated about you said, “Why is she being so mean?” and I said, “She is not mean”. She hasn’t got a mean bone in her body. She is telling the truth as she, there’s no. It’s a difficult thing to say to an actor. Sometimes,there’s no subtext here, and sometimes there’s subtext which is involuntary to the character.
Hart Hanson 21:13
They don’t even know. Subconscious, yeah. I can think of thata million times you did that, where you said one thing, and you meant it. But, the implications was underneath that you were had another thing going on.
Emily Deschanel 21:13
Subconscious.
Emily Deschanel 21:29
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 21:29
And I’ve said this a million times behind your back and to people. I’ve never seen anyone else do that, I’ve never seen it in a feature film.
Emily Deschanel 21:37
You’re the only actor who does anything. I don’t even understand what we’re talking about.
Carla Gallo 21:44
Because you’re so thoroughly, you did the melding. I mean,she said, I’m literal. I know I’m very literal. And I’m like, “Well, yeah, that’s why you are”. Eventually, I think they became this, amalgamation. But I can watch this and kind of pull back and see that script, and then know that they find you for this.
Emily Deschanel 22:09
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 22:10
Well, I watch now.
Emily Deschanel 22:12
Oh, I’m so happy that this is the show. This is the part that I got to play for so long, too.
Hart Hanson 22:18
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 22:18
Because, I was in the middle of pilot season. So, we were talking about how I didn’t even go to the studio test.
Carla Gallo 22:26
She chose a different test.
Emily Deschanel 22:27
Do you remember?
Carla Gallo 22:28
She went to a different […] .
Hart Hanson 22:31
But I was told. I forgot but maybe it was, very said, “Don’t worry”.
Emily Deschanel 22:35
Oh, I literally went to another test.
Carla Gallo 22:38
It got canceled.
Hart Hanson 22:39
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 22:41
She’ll be like, “We’ll get her”.
Hart Hanson 22:43
I don’t know. Sometimes the Canadian can’t read that. Maybe it was just “Don’t panic or something”.
Carla Gallo 22:49
So you knew it was her? […] .
Emily Deschanel 22:49
Right.
Hart Hanson 22:53
No, I suspected it was her. I knew in my heart it was her. And then she proved it. David was being challenging, and hesimply advanced on Emily during a line and he came at her like a wall, and she stepped into him as Brennan.
Carla Gallo 23:22
Amazing. I want to watch it happen live in front of you.
Hart Hanson 23:31
At the end, David said, “That’s our girl”. David said that.
Emily Deschanel 23:36
Oh! David.
Hart Hanson 23:39
And he had another opinion before.
Carla Gallo 23:43
Interesting.
Hart Hanson 23:43
I should ask him sometime wondering if he advanced on you.
Emily Deschanel 23:47
I’ll ask him too.
Carla Gallo 23:47
To test her?
Hart Hanson 23:49
Yeah. But, God bless him. He is that guy has very good insight, and I didn’t even have to said that because […] I had my entire 3 million of this character, that characterism.
Carla Gallo 24:08
Yeah, that makes sense. And I feel like I saw another note that I made in watching it. I wish I could pull it up and say it, but you are just in step with him, where there’s this bunch of lines, and it might be in the second episode, not the first episode, I don’t know. But, he says something where you guysare in the car, and he’s like, “You wait in the car”, and you justlook at him, and he goes, “Okay, you walk behind me”, and you look at him, and he’s like, “Okay, you know what?” Yeah,this is it, right here. This woman is just and you believe it, it’s just a look. And that’s the whole story there, right?
Hart Hanson 24:46
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 24:46
Like, no, we are matched. I’m not walking behind you, I’m notwaiting in the car and that’s so great.
Emily Deschanel 24:56
That’s why I love the character so much. I was saying, when I got the script, I love the dialogue, and the back and forth between the characters so much. I like the relationship between them. But, I loved how strong she was, but I almost appreciated even more now looking back, I’m like, “This is thepart that I needed to play”. She was so strong. I think it also helps too, I think I mentioned this before to you, Carla, that I had not watched Buffy or Angel.
Carla Gallo 25:31
Right.
Emily Deschanel 25:31
I was not somebody […]. I somehow remember there was he went to a gym I worked out on and someone said, “You knowwho came to the gym the other day?” And I was like, “Who?””Dave Boreanaz”. And I was like, “Who is that?”, I didn’t know who it was. From Angel, from Buffy.
Carla Gallo 25:52
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 25:52
And I was like, “Oh, the word was that he brought a football and was running on the treadmill with a foot”.
Hart Hanson 25:59
I can see that.
Emily Deschanel 26:00
That’s what my memory is, something about football. I’m notsure he was running on the travel.
Carla Gallo 26:07
But, it does help. I think that definitely helps.
Emily Deschanel 26:10
I think it help because it was not intimidated.
Carla Gallo 26:12
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 26:12
I was intimidated, but I wasn’t as intimidated as I could have been.
Hart Hanson 26:15
Yeah […] .
Carla Gallo 26:19
I love that, because I can visualize it just if that him, you stepping up and just going […] .
Emily Deschanel 26:29
I thought it was that I got him to stand up, and he stood up.Remember, somebody told me.
Hart Hanson 26:32
It is typically possible that it’s the truth.
Emily Deschanel 26:35
No, but I probably did the same thing you’re talking about. I remember the room.
Hart Hanson 26:38
This is my memory.
Emily Deschanel 26:41
I probably did that too, but someone said he stood up, and he didn’t stand up for other people, or something like that. It was the scene where driving and then I get out of the car.
Hart Hanson 26:51
He got excited.
Emily Deschanel 26:51
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 26:54
And you had not done work session with him?
Emily Deschanel 26:57
No, I never met him before.
Carla Gallo 26:58
So, in the test is the first time you guys?
Emily Deschanel 27:02
That’s the first time I met him.
Carla Gallo 27:03
Are you serious?
Carla Gallo 27:05
Because even when I have […] you know, like, Jay Baer showing them.
Emily Deschanel 27:05
Serious.
Emily Deschanel 27:10
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 27:11
We did work sessions and things like that. But it just undeclared in that one in particular. We were testing in the girls, were testing individually, and they happened to hold him in the room for my second scene. And I don’t think they had done that, or maybe they had, I don’t know, to the other woman had come in, but it’s why I know. It’s why I got it.
Carla Gallo 27:28
Because he and I together. You know, you’re testing on your own for your character. But I guess they probably had said, “Okay, let’s see him together”, and the whole room changed.
Hart Hanson 27:28
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 27:29
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 27:29
When he was in that room, their love for him was palpable, and then he and I get it, just it like I knew, I knew in that moment that, I got it, because I could feel the room.
Emily Deschanel 27:49
I’ve never felt that I got something.
Carla Gallo 27:53
I don’t know that I was like, “That’s mine”, but it felt, it was impossible.
Emily Deschanel 27:57
Yeah. But, there’s something special.
Carla Gallo 27:58
Never since have I tested with, I don’t think with, maybe onI’ve done chemistry with things that were on camera and youdid it up. But usually when I test, it’s me and a reader and that’s hard.
Emily Deschanel 28:06
Yeah, I know.
Carla Gallo 28:11
Because that chemistry, that thing that was happening with them, you can’t duplicate that.
Hart Hanson 28:15
I’m not sure if studios and that networks look specifically for chemistry. And, of course, they should.
Carla Gallo 28:21
They have to.
Hart Hanson 28:22
They have a whole list of things they look for. Can be seen separately.
Emily Deschanel 28:27
Right. But you have to see. I mean, you don’t have to. I think the whole cast had great chemistry. Wait, let’s go back. I want to hear about, how did you go about writing something that was based on Kathy, but has the same character name as the book, and sort of […]. And you said that you had no interest in doing a crime show.
Hart Hanson 28:49
No interest.
Emily Deschanel 28:50
What made you change your mind, and how did you able to make a show that was a crime show in a way that you felt good and that you wanted to?
Hart Hanson 28:58
I got an idea watching Kathy. You may have noticed she doesn’t go like this. When she speaks, she speaks in fully formed sentences.
Emily Deschanel 29:11
Yes.
Hart Hanson 29:12
Relatively quickly. Something that you may recall, I remember. I don’t know if you remember this, but I I pitched that to you. I said, “I’m so sorry, but we kind of need this character to”, not everyone else can stop and think about things and poor Brennan has to comes out […] .
Emily Deschanel 29:33
It’s very specific way of speaking that isn’t really natural to many people.
Hart Hanson 29:38
No, it’s a completely an idea, only other person who had to do anything approaching that, was TJ. And TJ had a little advantage not to take anything away from him, which is he got to put all sorts of sauce on what he was saying. He was excited about it and it was erotic to him, or whatever it was, he got to do that. And Brennan was much the time was explained.
Emily Deschanel 30:01
Some things, but it wasn’t as much like TJ.
Hart Hanson 30:04
It wasn’t the kind of sauce.
Emily Deschanel 30:06
It wasn’t the same sauce.
Hart Hanson 30:07
I was writing. I remember for a year just feeling, how am I doing this?
Emily Deschanel 30:11
Today that you were.
Hart Hanson 30:11
These people touch me because I guess watching Kathy in this documentary, and to me, it felt like she was a 40s actressin the modern world with a bunch of shambling professors and things she was, and she’s blonde.
Carla Gallo 30:11
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 30:32
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 30:33
And perfect posture, doesn’t hesitate and stuff. The other show I had always just admired for the musicality of the dialogue was Gilmore Girls, and it went like stink. Gilmore Girls scripts are 10 pages long.
Emily Deschanel 30:53
They’re very long.
Hart Hanson 30:54
Very long.
Emily Deschanel 30:54
Because if you watch that, I feel like after it’s been on likebasically, if you watch that now, it’s insane how fast they talk.
Hart Hanson 31:05
Insane. And they had their excuse. Their conceived reason was all that caffeine. They were always pumping caffeine.
Emily Deschanel 31:14
Right.
Hart Hanson 31:14
Ours was super brainy.
Emily Deschanel 31:16
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 31:17
And they’re really smart. They don’t want to waste any time.
Emily Deschanel 31:20
And they have a murder to catch.
Emily Deschanel 31:22
I don’t remember.
Hart Hanson 31:22
They have a murderer to catch. And God bless Greg Yaitanes, in our first meeting, we’re talking about finding a director for the pilot. And I said, “Do you think the script needs to be cut? Because it was long”.
Hart Hanson 31:27
64 to 66.
Emily Deschanel 31:33
Really was it? 56 is usually the average.
Hart Hanson 31:43
Yeah, 54 to 56.
Emily Deschanel 31:44
Yeah, 54 to 56 is an average for people who don’t know.
Hart Hanson 31:48
Yeah, our show got shorter as the commercial got longer for 12 years. No, don’t cut a thing. This is like a 40s movie with it.
Emily Deschanel 32:01
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 32:01
And it was funny, how many times you for fun, fooling aroundor something between scenes would talk in kind of a mid atlantic yacht?
Emily Deschanel 32:10
Oh, yeah. Darling!
Hart Hanson 32:13
Yes, and I just thought, “Okay, we only need a few people to get”, Booth does not have to talk like a 40s thin man, but he can talk like Spencer Tracy.
Emily Deschanel 32:26
Right.
Hart Hanson 32:26
Or one of those guys, and everyone else had their, you know, Eric was very good at speed talking, so as TJ.
Emily Deschanel 32:35
TJ.
Hart Hanson 32:38
But that made everybody speed up a little.
Emily Deschanel 32:41
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 32:41
And Greg kept everything on the move. I could have kissed him on the lips, I can be a duck sequence.
Emily Deschanel 32:47
Oh, yeah.
Hart Hanson 32:48
Because I believe that’s what sold our series, that sequence where, for once, he’s walking and you’re running.
Emily Deschanel 32:57
I remember after I took my shoes, it wasn’t plan.
Hart Hanson 32:59
You lay your shoes off, and did a hard.
Emily Deschanel 33:01
It was hard for me to walk on the grass with the heels, so I took them off, and I started running after him.
Hart Hanson 33:10
It was a perfect example of that thing I was talking about, the quality that is so hard. When she was saying, “I can be a duck”, she meant it.
Emily Deschanel 33:18
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 33:19
But she conveyed her desire to be that person, to be out with that hop and the shoes off and everything. It was just a free,so she was both; spectrumy and joyous. I think that got us. I’ve never asked Gail Berman, but I feel like that’s one of the sequences that got us put on the air.
Carla Gallo 33:51
We’ll be right back with more from Hart Hanson.
Emily Deschanel 34:06
Do you know any memories of the pilot? I hope you have some memories of the pilot.
Hart Hanson 34:18
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 34:18
What are your favorite memories of the pilot? Any memories of the pilot?
Hart Hanson 34:23
Well, I have every kind of memory you can have about the pilot.
Emily Deschanel 34:29
Positive, negative, every sad.
Hart Hanson 34:34
I don’t remember being angry. But, everyone says I’m such a nice man.
Emily Deschanel 34:39
Yes.
Hart Hanson 34:40
You know, I’m a crank.
Emily Deschanel 34:41
I know you’re nice and a crank, two things at the same.
Carla Gallo 34:47
I feel offended.
Hart Hanson 34:50
I had one.
Emily Deschanel 34:51
Well, you’re mostly like a joyous person.
Carla Gallo 34:53
Yes.
Emily Deschanel 34:53
I feel, you would finds humor and most things in life,I feel you could find things funny that other people wouldn’t find funny.
Hart Hanson 35:00
To my detriment, sometimes.
Emily Deschanel 35:01
But, you enjoy life, and we enjoy it as well, because we canlaugh as well.
Hart Hanson 35:09
I had one. I don’t know if you were aware or not. I had one moment of tenseness with Greg Yaitanes.
Emily Deschanel 35:18
I don’t know. I don’t even know what was it.
Hart Hanson 35:21
There’s a moment in the pilot where Brennan takes down the.
Emily Deschanel 35:26
Homeland security guy in the airport.
Hart Hanson 35:29
In the airport, and I asked him, “What is our out of this scene?What am I cutting just because I couldn’t see it? I’m not a great editor. I’m never going to be a director. But I couldn’t see”. So, I really just wanted him to explain to me what he thought it would be, and he either couldn’t or wouldn’t, and was angry at me.
Emily Deschanel 35:51
Did he think you were doubting him or something and that’s why?
Hart Hanson 35:54
I don’t know. He probably doesn’t even remember.
Emily Deschanel 35:56
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 35:56
It was not a confrontation.
Emily Deschanel 35:59
Right.
Hart Hanson 35:59
I was unsatisfied in the moment and when we got there, I remember saying to the editor, “Do we have an out on this scene? What is it?”, and we had to fuss. So I wasn’t 1,000% wrong, but I also wasn’t right. It didn’t matter.
Emily Deschanel 36:14
It didn’t matter that much […] .
Hart Hanson 36:17
That guy knows exactly what he’s doing.
Emily Deschanel 36:19
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 36:20
Greg Yaitanes knows exactly.
Emily Deschanel 36:21
He’s a great director.
Hart Hanson 36:22
And I should not have questioned him.
Emily Deschanel 36:26
You’re the showrunner. I mean, I think it’s good.
Hart Hanson 36:29
Sometimes, shut up.
Emily Deschanel 36:30
We don’t necessarily have to question, but it’s getting theinformation. Well, I know it’s complicated, right?
Emily Deschanel 36:35
Because it’s your show and you want to make sure that it’s done right, and it has the best chance of being the best it can be, right?
Hart Hanson 36:35
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 36:44
But you have to also watch out that you’re not saying, “Well, Ican demand this, and I demand to be told” […] .
Emily Deschanel 36:50
You’re questioning their abilities to do the job too, which is complicated. You also just need to hire the person and then trust that they’re going to do the right job.
Hart Hanson 36:59
Exactly.
Emily Deschanel 36:59
And I think that’s huge.
Hart Hanson 37:01
If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t do that. We were tired, you know?
Emily Deschanel 37:08
That sounds a pretty minor thing, I can be in a much more tense situation.
Hart Hanson 37:13
Of course, you have. By the way, that is not a fulcrum scene. It’s a storytelling scene. It’s not one of like, “Oh my god, thetwist of the”.
Carla Gallo 37:27
The pilots are so crazy. Because everything that’s riding on and what you have to accomplish in a pilot in terms of storytelling and introducing characters. Forever it’s the question, when you’re trying to pitch even a script, or “What is the arc?”, “What is that”. And so, all this is sort of trying to be told in this episode. On top of that, just the business aspect, you are trying to sell it.
Hart Hanson 37:50
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 37:50
So it also had better be, purchase worthy, you know.
Hart Hanson 37:55
There’s all sorts of studio and network people hanging around, and it’s a very weird thing. We were inextremely good hands with Greg.
Emily Deschanel 38:04
And he takes twice as long to shoot, or we were given twice as long as a normal episode to shoot the pilot, which is was kind of at least standard at that time.
Hart Hanson 38:14
Well we have weird location.
Emily Deschanel 38:16
Yeah, Carlo didn’t realize that, that lab was a location.
Carla Gallo 38:20
[…] I watched the pilot.
Emily Deschanel 38:30
The shows are over there.
Carla Gallo 38:32
I made a note, I was kind of “Are you people crazy? You built that set for a pilot? Are you insane?”, she was like, “No, it was actually a real place”. […] Is also kind of insane.
Hart Hanson 38:44
It was the largest, so much money. Barry wouldn’t tell me how much it costs.
Emily Deschanel 38:53
How would you not know that? How would you not have thataccess to that information?
Hart Hanson 38:58
I would have to go digging for it.
Emily Deschanel 39:00
Oh, so you wouldn’t have access to the whole budget of the show?
Hart Hanson 39:03
Absolutely would. But sometimes things don’t appear in the column that they have. One of the things line producers very often will say, “Do you really want to know?”, and I usually take that as a sign.
Emily Deschanel 39:20
No, don’t.
Hart Hanson 39:21
Somebody’s moving money around. We’re stealing from the costume budget in six episodes, and we’re lying here. And all that matters is what happens at the end. And it took several years for us to be able to say to Bruce Margolis. Rest in peace, Bruce Margolis.
Emily Deschanel 39:38
Oh, Bruce Margolis.
Hart Hanson 39:39
He trusts us. At the end of the season, we will be with him 10% of the budget.
Emily Deschanel 39:43
Yeah, okay. So when you made the pilot? When? Okay. So many questions. My mind is going a mile a minute. What were the challenges of making the pilot and getting it made in the first place? And then I’m so curious, what were. Okay, tell me that, and I have so many questions on.
Hart Hanson 40:02
This is where we owe Barry Josephson.
Emily Deschanel 40:05
Yes.
Hart Hanson 40:08
I later found out that Barry, I’m glad he did it. But he would say “Hart’s gonna walk off the project if you don’t give him the slab the way he wants”. Just invoking me. I don’t even know where Hart is. He’s so upset right now that he said that after some casting. It’s just absolutely not true, but it worked for us in every.
Emily Deschanel 40:31
Emily Deschanel as Brennan, he was gonna locked.
Hart Hanson 40:35
Barry twisted arms.
Emily Deschanel 40:38
What did he do to make that happen?
Hart Hanson 40:39
He was an excellent producer to get us the largest set that they had ever built in the 20th and that huge stage.
Emily Deschanel 40:49
It was such an amazing […] .
Carla Gallo 40:52
This is upon pickup.
Hart Hanson 40:54
This is upon pickup, right.
Emily Deschanel 40:56
Pilot, we shot at the California Science Center […] .
Carla Gallo 41:03
[…] Having seen the pilot, all those little elements were in the stage.
Emily Deschanel 41:08
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 41:09
And so we got this set that we shot.
Carla Gallo 41:13
Incredible.
Hart Hanson 41:14
Yes, we were inside so many days per shoot. But we had a great set. If it had been me left alone to do that, our set would have looked what labs actually look like.
Emily Deschanel 41:26
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 41:27
And we’d have been out here in six months.
Emily Deschanel 41:29
That would be fun to look at.
Carla Gallo 41:29
Yes, visually. That’s what we were just talking about, sort of medical or procedural shows, it’s very sterile, and this is so visually stunning, that framework and all the platform. And then I was saying that halt, where the walk and talks happen under those steel.
Hart Hanson 41:29
No.
Hart Hanson 41:45
Yeah, all those things. I just remember telling Barry, you can’t have a garden hanging above the forensic platform with plants in it.
Emily Deschanel 41:57
It look like marijuana leaves at some point […] .
Hart Hanson 42:01
I was just like “No, this is stupid”. And I was being cranky and everything. And he said, “Hart, let me have this. Let me have the set. I’ve earned this, let me have it”. And it was like, “Wow,what are you gonna do when someone says that?”. And it’s like, “Okay, fine”. And no one ever said in a review, what the hell are those clients doing?
Emily Deschanel 42:17
No one ever did. They could say things, but they never said that.
Carla Gallo 42:21
I would […] people saying things. Why do you think the show was such a sensation because it’s so unusual. There’s a handful of shows that lasted as long as this one.
Carla Gallo 42:35
What do you think it is? And it had such a devoted fan base, and people who we’ve talked about, people who were like, “I was going through a hard time and that’s the show that I”.What do you think it is about the show? Why did it resonate?
Hart Hanson 42:35
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 42:48
I think it’s the cliche answer, the characters. I think that we became invested in. We had a deep bench, so it wasn’t all onDavid and Emily to be Brennan and Booth and have that oneromance, although that was the iron backbone of our show.
Hart Hanson 43:06
It was a romcom and it was the iron backbone of the show. Then we had a perfect couple. Once they got together, Hodgins and Angela, they were perfect. I had this argument with writers and everybody all the time; “No, we’re not trying to give them big, no one’s gonna cheat. There’s not gonna beanything, there’s no angst”.
Carla Gallo 43:06
Right.
Emily Deschanel 43:30
I don’t think anyone ever cheated. That’s a hard thing to do.
Hart Hanson 43:37
[…]. We do things like, “Oh, guess what? Angela’s married”. So we cheated, but she did want to be married.
Emily Deschanel 43:45
Right.
Hart Hanson 43:46
When we went from torzac going off and replaced him with a revolving door of interns, that really helped us in the lab so that we could stay on budget and make a show. Because we couldn’t go out more.
Carla Gallo 44:10
Really? It makes sense.
Hart Hanson 44:11
This is horrible. But sometimes, you know, there were years when they were going, “Should we bring back Bones or not?”. And they’re going, “Oh, look at the return”. It’s the end because it’s business.
Emily Deschanel 44:11
We did this, right?
Carla Gallo 44:14
That’s so crazy. I would never think to me, that’s so like, we used to make jokes. We’d be, “Well, they decided not to havedonuts at breakfast this week”. And have both interns here. We’d make a joke about sort of inconsequential. We didn’t think that. It’s funny to me to think that even that would affect a budget to have lost a series regular and bring in recurring […] .
Emily Deschanel 44:47
But we had another series regular that came in soon after, right?
Hart Hanson 44:51
We replaced Goodman.
Emily Deschanel 44:54
Yes, we had John Francis Daley come in after Zach was gone.
Hart Hanson 45:01
Yes. We were budgeted for that character with Stephen Fry.But Stephen couldn’t do it, just be there that much. So that was within our forecasting budget, that character, the revolving interns.
Carla Gallo 45:20
That’s so interesting.
Hart Hanson 45:21
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 45:23
I know they serve different purposes, but I know there’s seriesregulars.
Carla Gallo 45:28
You never know. It’s so funny to not know. […] Where you’re like, “Well, it serves the story because it’s a fresh face that”, right? You’re like, “No, it saved, it was a great money saver”.
Hart Hanson 45:44
Both those things are true.
Carla Gallo 45:46
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 45:47
Here’s what happened. You realize, “Oh, my god, the gold in this series is Brennan and Booth out in the field”. We weren’t designed for that. We were designed for Booth to be out in the field and Brennan to be on the stage as a main character. But then it was like, “There’s so much out there”.
Hart Hanson 46:10
So now, how are we going to still shoot half the time on the ladder, without a main character, without the two main characters, that’s why we needed these. Thank you interns, Carla, cycling through with their stories, bringing with them stories and leaving again. We really needed that. We neededBrennan to be interacting with those people in a way she couldn’t with just one person who, again, bad initial design orfaulty initial design, was going to be the one person more on the spectrum than Brennan was, so that we were doubled up stories. It just, it wasn’t going to work with.
Carla Gallo 46:10
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 47:05
Right, that makes sense.
Hart Hanson 47:07
When I did the math, it’s the thing that sucks about being showrunner, “Frank, you did the math”. Went, “Oh my god, I don’t know how to do this and keep Zach”.
Carla Gallo 47:17
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 47:18
Same with Goodman, he did a good job. He was very good. But I stupidly designed someone without a function in the lab, aside from being the boss.
Emily Deschanel 47:28
Right. He was the boss, and I fit. I don’t think […] but it didn’t fit. So Brennan never took it serious, the character inherently,doesn’t care what the boss says.
Hart Hanson 47:42
Right. So now, we needed a boss who was also a coroner to do the meat side, we have to do that. So when you’re sitting at home, doing the math of how do we keep this going and it’s real people, real livelihoods. It’s awful.
Emily Deschanel 48:03
Well, that kind of segues into the fact that showrunners are writers, but usually being a writer doesn’t make you a good showrunner. But I always think that you’re such a good showrunner because, for many reasons, you’re obviously sucha talented writer. But you also had these other skills, which were being able to change something at the last minute. I saw you have to change something. Like, for instance, if one intern wasn’t available, literally last minute, totally rewritten, and it would be Carla wasn’t available, and someone else had to come (Eugene had to come in) or whatever vice versa.You could be so flat, you were so flexible.
Hart Hanson 48:47
We had to be flexible with those actors. They had to be able to get out or in at the drop of a hat, because we had super good actors.
Emily Deschanel 48:55
Yeah, and they could get other jobs.
Hart Hanson 48:57
They could get other jobs. So you couldn’t say, no. For us to have you guys back these wonderful, really.
Hart Hanson 49:08
That was a trade-off. It’s like, “Okay, let’s make this as easy as we can for the actor who is coming in to save our ass every few weeks and trying to be fair to how much room theygot and what”, and you couldn’t just plug one. They were such characters you couldn’t just plug in say, “Okay, give them the dialogue, it’s now.
Emily Deschanel 49:08
That was a trade-off.
Carla Gallo 49:31
Their plot lines are so different.
Emily Deschanel 49:32
No, wait. The best time was when Joel David Moore got plugged in last minute into an episode that we taught was a cross, not a crossover, but a promotion, essentially, for the movie Avatar. Joel David Moore is in the movie Avatar.
Carla Gallo 49:47
Yes.
Emily Deschanel 49:47
And the plot was that they went to camp out to see the Avatar. […] I was like, “What the hell?”. It was supposed to be a different intern.
Carla Gallo 50:01
That’s crazy.
Emily Deschanel 50:01
And it got switched out and it’s kind of a funny.
Hart Hanson 50:07
We were such good corporate citizens trying to get them to like us, the abused child. When they wanted to do The Simpsons.
Emily Deschanel 50:13
Do you like it now?
Hart Hanson 50:14
Yeah, remember The Simpsons crossover?
Emily Deschanel 50:16
Well, they did the Stewie, like the family guy.
Hart Hanson 50:19
The Stewie thing?
Emily Deschanel 50:20
That was amazing thought of how to do it. Oh yes, The Simpsons crossover.
Hart Hanson 50:23
The Simpsons crossover came from them and Stewie Griffincame from us.
Emily Deschanel 50:28
Stewie came from us, that was brilliant.
Carla Gallo 50:30
What’s the Simpsons crossover?
Hart Hanson 50:33
Do you remember what it was anniversary?
Emily Deschanel 50:35
Yes.
Hart Hanson 50:35
If they could just put, they wanted every show to put in little easter eggs for The Simpsons.
Carla Gallo 50:40
Okay.
Hart Hanson 50:41
So, we had a scene where they’re talking seriously about something, and it’s Homer’s head. It’s the X ray.
Emily Deschanel 50:46
Yeah […] . You probably wouldn’t notice that if you weren’t looking […] Fans are not going to be like, “I’m going to watch Bones”. Do you know what I mean? Fans of bones already, probably.
Hart Hanson 51:07
Yeah. But I thought, that’s fun.
Emily Deschanel 51:10
I mean, well, why not? The Stewie thing was brilliant. You want to talk about that?
Hart Hanson 51:15
Seth MacFarlane came and did all those voicesand did all the promos for the show.
Emily Deschanel 51:23
That’s nice.
Hart Hanson 51:23
He was just like, “What a prince”.
Emily Deschanel 51:26
Yeah, that’s awesome. I didn’t know that. I mean, I guess I figured, because he did the voice, it wasn’t something else.
Hart Hanson 51:32
We wanted Booth to have a terrible health issue that he could recover from.
Emily Deschanel 51:38
Okay. And to have some humor too.
Hart Hanson 51:40
Yes, we would call them the “weird shows”, and that’s what we like. We call them that to ourselves, the writers room and everything.
Emily Deschanel 51:48
I didn’t know you call them weird.
Hart Hanson 51:49
We call them the weird ones and we call them to the studio and the network as well. Come on, we’ve earned a weird show.
Carla Gallo 51:56
Oh, you won? Okay.
Hart Hanson 51:57
So we did the one where Brennan was solving her own mystery.
Emily Deschanel 52:02
Yes. Oh! That one?
Hart Hanson 52:03
She was seeing herself and we did the one from the point of view.
Emily Deschanel 52:08
The skull and then the nightclub won.
Hart Hanson 52:11
The night club won, one of my favorites, the movie […] .
Carla Gallo 52:15
Because sometimes we would do the ones that were the big anniversary type episodes and so that’s what that was.
Emily Deschanel 52:22
Flashback into Booth and Brennan and me, was the 100th episode. We did an episode where we named every single bone in the human body.
Hart Hanson 52:29
Yes, we played games and people found all of them. They found we have nutty.
Emily Deschanel 52:36
What do you mean they found them?
Hart Hanson 52:39
The nutty, magnificent bones. Fans would find the things thatwe do.
Emily Deschanel 52:43
Oh, they find. They have access on certain things.
Hart Hanson 52:45
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 52:46
The number thing.
Hart Hanson 52:47
Yeah, 44744.
Emily Deschanel 52:48
I can remember the number. I was thinking about that this morning. I was like, “Hart, will remember the number”. Anyway, when you did the show and it got picked up for a series, how long did you think it would last?
Hart Hanson 53:00
I was not optimistic. I prayed that we would last till Christmas.
Emily Deschanel 53:08
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 53:08
Really?
Hart Hanson 53:09
Yes, and we kind of alluded too. I was getting my ass kicked a lot in that first season, especially in the first half.
Emily Deschanel 53:17
What was the fights about? What were you? How are you getting your […] ?
Hart Hanson 53:21
I was being told by the studio and the network that the show should be more CSI and less of what we had going.
Emily Deschanel 53:30
But, what that’s makes our show unique? […] .
Hart Hanson 53:34
Much less character.
Carla Gallo 53:36
Okay.
Hart Hanson 53:36
Way more science and twists and turns.
Carla Gallo 53:39
It exactly what works.
Emily Deschanel 53:41
What works about that? I mean, it what makes it unique.
Hart Hanson 53:44
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 53:44
But do you remember having the conversation and I want to hear more in general about that. But it makes me think of this. Do you remember having the conversation about kind ofmaking my character a little more likable. But maybe it was more about making her more care about the dead people.
Hart Hanson 54:04
Oh, yes.
Emily Deschanel 54:06
I don’t know when we had that conversation, but we have so many things, there’s so many memories. And my birthday, that first season, do you remember that?
Hart Hanson 54:14
I will never forget that indelible moments.
Emily Deschanel 54:18
That was the worst. But that’s a whole.
Hart Hanson 54:23
The head of the network turned to me and said, “Well, good luck”.
Emily Deschanel 54:31
Okay, the day of my birthday. So the day before my birthday, Hart had to have a conversation, and that must be the most hard thing to do, having to have conversations that are basically not even your conversations. You had to have conversations that were from the studio to me about I had been late one day because of a terrible accident. I might have been late a little bit other days, but I was like, 45 minutes late because of a terrible accident one day. And I think the studio saw that and saw maybe I was a few minutes late on. I didn’t even realize.
Hart Hanson 55:02
Oh, yes. Okay, it’s coming back.
Emily Deschanel 55:03
Production report, right? And then, I took it as I need to be more prepared. I had so much dialogue, and we were working insane hours, and I was so stressed out. I responded with this constructive criticism with projectile tears. My friendwas visiting me at the time, and she’s like, “I’ve never seen tears by shooting cartoons”. I was so vulnerable and sensitive. I was so tired and stressed out. And so, when we had that conversation, I was such a delicate flower that I could not and I took it as, like, “No, they don’t think I’m professional?”. It was a late thing. So I just like, “I wasn’t always”. And also, even when I knew my lines, I had no one helping me learn my lines at that time.
Hart Hanson 56:01
Yeah, right.
Emily Deschanel 56:03
My manager used that to be like, “Well, can you get her somehelp to learn these really hard lines when she’s working long hours?”, I would come home and cry in a bathtub. I was so tired and so stressed. I didn’t realize I was having, basically, panic attacks, and I didn’t even know what they were. I would look around the room and think that everyone waslooking at me and wanting. I couldn’t think of the line in that moment, because I was so tired, even though I knew the linesand the room would start becoming, you know, it took tunnelvision, and I was just.
Carla Gallo 56:36
Did you know this?
Hart Hanson 56:38
I knew what I knew. I know what happens when the crushing job of being number one on the call sheet comes to people.
Carla Gallo 56:51
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 56:52
And I’ve been through it before. In this case, it was like, “Okay, someone has to talk to Emily about being late”. And it’s a long conversation, but I said, “Oh no, no, I’ll do it”, because we’re not going to have the studio doing. We’ll not going to have anyone go through management. No! I will do it.
Emily Deschanel 57:13
I really appreciate direct conversations. And that’s one thing that I don’t like about other places or my reps wanting to, I’mlike, “No, I want to have the conversation with people”, but anyways, […] conversation with me.
Hart Hanson 57:24
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 57:24
But I’m sure it’s a hard conversation. Those types of conversations are hard to have with people.
Carla Gallo 57:31
But also, when you’re delivering so much and being asked so much is being asked of you, and then he has to talk to you about being late.
Hart Hanson 57:36
Well, and that problem was, if I’m remembering this correctly. I think I am because it’s traumatic. It was like, “I kindof don’t agree”.
Emily Deschanel 57:45
Well that’s why because it’s not your thing, it’s not your message which is complicated and hard.
Hart Hanson 57:53
But, can you imagine having a studio executive come to talk to you about it? So I said, “No, I will talk”.
Emily Deschanel 57:59
No, I was so glad it was you.
Carla Gallo 58:02
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 58:03
I mean, I’m sorry that you had to deal with me having projectile tears […]. I would have been a puddle if a studio executive came to talk to me about it.
Hart Hanson 58:15
No, I couldn’t have lived with it.
Emily Deschanel 58:18
And then the next day was my birthday, so I and my friend was visiting. I remember, we got picked up for the back nine on my birthday.
Hart Hanson 58:26
Yeah.
Emily Deschanel 58:27
Which means that we got picked up for.
Hart Hanson 58:28
Which can sound horrible news for anyone, if you’re in a certain state of mind.
Emily Deschanel 58:36
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 58:37
I have to do nine more. It doesn’t come on adult. It’s not unadulterated joy. It’s like, “Oh my god, I’m never gonna see my wife again”.
Emily Deschanel 58:48
To me, I wouldn’t been excited, but, I still like doing the job. But when I got that, I felt like, “Okay, they’re not on my side, the studio or the network, or whatever they don’t think I’m professional”, it is how I interpreted it. Then it was my birthday, and we got picked up for the back nine and there’sa whole surprise. My mom even came and I don’t know why my mom never told anyone that I hate being sung to and I hate surprises for my birthday.
Hart Hanson 59:19
You hate surprises?
Emily Deschanel 59:21
I hate surprise.
Hart Hanson 59:22
Maybe now, you don’t.
Emily Deschanel 59:24
No, I don’t like surprises.
Hart Hanson 59:27
Emily.
Emily Deschanel 59:28
Yes?
Hart Hanson 59:28
Don’t surprise her […] .
Emily Deschanel 59:32
So my husband and I will surprise each other for birthdays and things, but I have to try, sometimes I’m like, “Well, what islike?” I want to kind of know what it is beforehand. That’s the only time I’m like, the head.
Hart Hanson 59:48
It can be a surprises. I don’t like to be surprised by the surprise.
Emily Deschanel 59:53
He wants to surprise me by taking to a psychic and that didn’t go well. But, he found on Google […] .
Hart Hanson 1:00:00
And what we know is that problem is systemic. It’s not you, it’s not number one on the call sheet. The system has to be set up so that these things don’t happen. And the blame came on you, and maybe you felt that somewhere, that it’s unfair. What do you mean be on time? How do we get her ontime? Is she spending too much time in hair and makeup?
Emily Deschanel 1:00:21
Yeah, I don’t think I had been late that much, by the way. I know the late thing could be that makeup thing, that’s what’shard is, people who are not on set don’t realize too.
Hart Hanson 1:00:32
That’s right.
Emily Deschanel 1:00:33
I’ve seen actresses or an actor being blamed for something that had to do with our costume having to be refitted because it didn’t fit over a harness, for instance, and they gave her a lecture when she came to set.
Hart Hanson 1:00:44
Yes.
Emily Deschanel 1:00:44
And I remember being like, “Okay, no part of this. You’re giving someone a lecture about something that was not her department, nor also the costumes department. It’s just things happen”.
Hart Hanson 1:00:53
Two things you hate are surprises and injustice.
Emily Deschanel 1:00:56
Yes […] .
Carla Gallo 1:01:00
You came to my defense. You had alert by the time, obviously, you’ve gone through all that stuff. And then there was something with me where there’s a rescheduling thing, but I hadn’t been booked […] .
Emily Deschanel 1:01:11
When you gave birth.
Carla Gallo 1:01:13
Was that when it was?
Emily Deschanel 1:01:13
Yes. You into labor early, we shot. You’re pregnant, and then we shot and then you gave birth.
Carla Gallo 1:01:22
Yeah […] .
Emily Deschanel 1:01:22
You went to labor that night.
Carla Gallo 1:01:28
I went to labor that night and gave birth the next day.
Emily Deschanel 1:01:30
Yeah. I did the same, 12 hours after I left set, I went into labor.
Carla Gallo 1:01:36
Yeah, it was eight hours later for me, it was the same.
Emily Deschanel 1:01:39
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 1:01:40
But I feel like there was a different time. I remember because I don’t think it was that time, because I think I would have been really defensive. But I remember a time when I came in and you were like, “Oh, I heard you took another job or something?”, and I was like,”I was never pinned for Bones when I took that job”. And you were like, “Wait, what?” And you’re like, “I had heard that you were pinned, and you took adifferent job. And I was like, “No, I wasn’t pinned”. And you took out your fan.
Emily Deschanel 1:02:14
I do not like it when someone’s blamed for something.
Hart Hanson 1:02:16
Oh! You hate that. And it doesn’t have to be you.
Carla Gallo 1:02:20
But, I appreciate […] .
Hart Hanson 1:02:25
By the way, that’s number one on the call sheet.
Carla Gallo 1:02:27
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 1:02:28
That’s a total lifeguard number one on the culture.
Carla Gallo 1:02:31
For sure.
Emily Deschanel 1:02:32
Wait, do you have a favorite episode Hart?
Hart Hanson 1:02:36
I have a few. I liked the weird episodes very much. I loved theclub episode, I loved the skull episode.
Emily Deschanel 1:02:42
Yeah.
Hart Hanson 1:02:43
Probably the show, though. My favorite episode is our first Christmas episode because we had our series. I watched it for the first time since that first Christmas; this Christmas. It was sweet and I liked it. I don’t know if you even remember the plot, it was a man had been killed who was going to run off, a white guy in the 20s found in a fallout shelter, who was supposed to run off with a black woman to the only place they could legally be together, which was Paris. And he was killed and left in that fallout shelter. And Brennan got for her Christmas, got to tell this ancient black woman that he hadthe tickets. He didn’t leave her there.
Emily Deschanel 1:03:37
It’s so sad.
Hart Hanson 1:03:37
It was so sad and it was so beautiful. Then everybody’s families coming to the glass.
Emily Deschanel 1:03:46
Oh yeah, I remember that.
Hart Hanson 1:03:47
Except for yours.
Emily Deschanel 1:03:49
Right.
Hart Hanson 1:03:50
Everyone’s families came and touched. And it was very fantastic. We found out that Booth had a kid and Zach’s family. That’s how we found out he was just a little kid then, and Zach had a large family of large people.
Emily Deschanel 1:04:05
Just like Eric Millegan has a large family.
Hart Hanson 1:04:07
He stole it from that and he just didn’t fit in with them.Hodgins was like a supermodel and wonderfully Angela’s dadwas, do you remember, she said, “Look, my dad’s kind of famous. I don’t want to talk about it, Billy Gibbons” […] .
Emily Deschanel 1:04:33
Then Billy Gibbons did several episodes of Bones.
Emily Deschanel 1:04:37
And Cyndi Lauper.
Hart Hanson 1:04:37
Yeah. Cyndi Lauper.
Hart Hanson 1:04:40
I like certain people of the show; David Alan Grier.
Emily Deschanel 1:04:44
David Alan Grier.
Hart Hanson 1:04:45
One of my favorite actors ever.
Carla Gallo 1:04:47
Betty White.
Hart Hanson 1:04:48
The oldest intern.
Emily Deschanel 1:04:49
The oldest, she was so cute […] .
Carla Gallo 1:04:52
Oh, she so funny […] .
Emily Deschanel 1:04:56
And there’s a blooper of her talking about like she was supposed to talk about somebody else who is a great lover, but she said Brennan instead, she’s like, “Brennan, what a great lover” […] Brennan, what a great lover.
Hart Hanson 1:05:11
So, the answer is, no, I don’t have a favorite, but I have a bunch of.
Emily Deschanel 1:05:13
A few favorites. I love that, we’ll be watching that Christmas episode, because that’s a great […] us and we’re gonna talk to him.
Hart Hanson 1:05:20
Oh yeah, he’ll be a great.
Emily Deschanel 1:05:23
He says, he remembers a lot.
Hart Hanson 1:05:25
He’s another one of you people has a huge brain and thingsstick in it.
Emily Deschanel 1:05:29
I feel like I remember a lot from season one. Feel like everything I’ve brought up and you remember things […] .
Hart Hanson 1:05:34
I have to be reminded of something to remember it, which is not remembering. It’s being prodded […] .
Hart Hanson 1:05:36
Well, thank you, Hart.
Carla Gallo 1:05:49
Thank you, Hart.
Emily Deschanel 1:05:50
Thank you so much.
Hart Hanson 1:05:52
Well, I would talk to you even without microphone. It’s stuck in my face.
Emily Deschanel 1:05:54
I know. I would talk to you without a microphone and happilywill do so. And I feel I could still talk to you with a microphone or without for many hours.
Hart Hanson 1:06:03
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 1:06:03
I know, it’s like I learned.
Emily Deschanel 1:06:05
I’m gonna call you next week […]. Perfect.
Carla Gallo 1:06:18
That was so fun.
Emily Deschanel 1:06:19
That was fun. He’s the best.
Carla Gallo 1:06:21
He’s the nicest person.
Emily Deschanel 1:06:22
I know.
Carla Gallo 1:06:23
Sweetest person.
Emily Deschanel 1:06:24
No, he really is. And we’ll have him back, hopefully. He said he’d come back.
Carla Gallo 1:06:30
Oh, he’ll come back.
Emily Deschanel 1:06:30
He’ll come back to talk. I mean, I feel like there’s so many things we didn’t have much to talk about.
Carla Gallo 1:06:35
I feel like I need to hear about every other episode, you know what I mean? I want to hear his own […] .
Emily Deschanel 1:06:38
[…] I feel like I got so much information on me being cast. But I want to know information on so many other things.
Carla Gallo 1:06:49
Well, I think that was important information, but I do want tohear.
Emily Deschanel 1:06:52
For me, I’m using this as a way to find out information why did I cast this? That’s what the podcast is.
Carla Gallo 1:06:58
That’s what the podcast is.
Emily Deschanel 1:06:59
Yeah.
Carla Gallo 1:06:59
Way for you to find out why you got the job. No, but yeah, there’s so much more to ask him.
Emily Deschanel 1:07:03
Thanks for coming and listening with us.
Carla Gallo 1:07:06
Thanks so much.
Emily Deschanel 1:07:07
See you next time.
CREDITS 1:07:07
Boneheads is a production of Lemonada Media and us. Our producer is Alex McOwen. Our engineers are Brian Castillo and Noah Smith. Our senior vice president of weekly content is Steve Nelson. Our executive producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Jessica Cordova Kramer and us; Emily Deschanel and Carla Gallo. Music by Doug Paisley. Special thanks to Allison Bresnick. To stay up to date with us and submit your listener questions. Follow us on Instagram @BoneheadsPod and at Lemonada Media on all social channels. Follow Boneheads wherever you get your podcasts, or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership. Thanks so much for listening.
